• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Need a good PCI video card Recommendation.

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Angry

Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2001
Heres the deal,

My freind just got a new computer, but he didnt have much of a choice in getting it cause his mom picked it out.
its an HP 510w here steh spec sheet:

product specifications printable specs



Diskette Drive 3.5" (1.44MB)


Education and Entertainment Microsoft® Encarta® 2001 Encyclopedia Deluxe Online With 1 Year trial subscription

HP Learning Adventures - 1 click access to 15 newly released software titles. Choose one title for free

InterVideo WinDVD™

HP RecordNow



Hard Drive 40GB Ultra DMA Gigabyte(GB) is defined as 1,000,000,000 bytes (accessible capacity may vary)


Internet Solutions AOL (Dial-up, DSL & Satellite), CompuServe® 2000, DirecTV DSL, EarthLink (SM)(Dial-up & DSL), GoAmerica, MSN


Multimedia Drive 48x max. speed CD-ROM


Music Software MusicMatch Jukebox 6.0 with coupon inside the box for 100 free songs from EMusic!


Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition


Productivity and Finance Adobe® Acrobat® Reader™ 4.0, ArcSoft™ My Photo Center includes: Media Browser 2000, Photo Studio 2000, Photo Fantasy 2000, Photo Printer 2000, Microsoft® Money 2001 Standard, Microsoft® Works 6.0


Available Drive Bays Internal (1) 3.5", External (1) 5.25"


Data/Fax Modem ITU V.90 K56flex modem, data/fax only (33.6Kbps send/download up to 56Kbps/14.4Kbps fax)


Available External Ports 4 USB; 2 serial; 1 parallel; 1 game port


Front Mounted Ports 1 Serial and 2 USB


Available Memory Slots 0 DIMM


Memory 128MB SDRAM (exp. to 512MB) with up to 11MB allocated to video memory


Available Slots 2 PCI


Memory Speed 133MHz


Microprocessor Intel® Celeron™ processor 1.1GHz with MMX Technology


Network Card Integrated 10/100Base-T networking interface


Frontside Bus 100MHz


Keyboard HP Internet Command Center; one-touch Internet keyboard


2-button PS/2 compatible mouse 2-button PS/2 Scrolling mouse


MPEG MPEG2 for full-motion digital video


Primary Cache (L1) 32Kb


Secondary-Level Cache (L2) 256Kb - on CPU


Total Drive Bays External (1) 3.5", (2) 5.25"; Internal (2) 3.5"


Total Expansion Slots 3 PCI


Total External Ports 4 USB; 2 serial; 1 parallel; 1 game port; 2 PS/2


Total Memory Slots 2 DIMM


Video Graphics Integrated Intel® Direct AGP 3D graphics with up to 11MB of dynamic video memory


Video Memory Up to 11MB of dynamic video memory

As you can tell it has one crappy built in video...

So whats up for grabs in a PCI video card?

No Geforce 2 MX....not even the 400....
Anything else will be fine...
 
If you don't mind looking for WinXP drivers, go buy the 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 PCI. Excellent card, very good graphics quality, good for gaming and normal usage, but hard to find drivers and manufacturer support (since 3Dfx died).
 
I had the Voodoo 5 5500 PCI back when I had no money for a decent rig (no agp slot). It was barely better than the integrated AGP. I hated it, I'm sorry but you will almost never get decent performance out of a PCI-based card. Unreal Tournament ran okay, but that was about it. Q3A ran, but all cutscenes and movies were choppy.

The Voodoo 5 5500 AGP is a great card, the 5500 PCI, however, is severely handicapped by the bus speed.

I guess if your friend absolutly needs a gfx upgrade and he can't buy a new mobo, then go with the V5 5500 PCI, because it is still the best choice. Personally I would use the GFX card money to buy a new mobo with an AGP slot and save for a little longer and grab some flavor of GF2 MX. That is the way to go as far as I am concerned. Find some 60-70 dollar mobo with agp, and grab a 50 dollar MX400. There, decent performance for under 120 bucks, which is about the price of a 5500 (i think)
 
You really are positive your friend cant get a new motherboard? He can't shoot out 100 dollars for a future compliant mobo like a 0.13 micron processor support board and a cheap AGP Card ie; Radeon 32 DDR.

PCI aren't good AT ALL.

Well if you had to pick one Voodoo 5 is ok I guess none are "good" the best they can go is ok where even in Microsoft Word your 2d words will be all fuzzy etc really sucks.

Yodums
 
I've got a hardly used Radeon 32meg PCI card that's good. I'll be posting it for sell real cheap as soon as I get 100 posts.
 
no, he cant get a new motherboard as he just got the computer, and i seriously doubt any normal motherboard will fit in the case he has...
 
Back